Hard Served Soft: Queer and Trans Textile Show

September 9 - October 14, 2023
Opening night: Saturday September 9th, 6-10pm
With DJ Veneer and Lynny’s open late

Hard feelings, ideas, thoughts and objects rendered soft. How do we use materials to soften feelings that want to be felt? How do we make fun of realities that taunt and haunt us? What do we make soft so it can hit hard? From woven tapestries of ocean garbage to quilted scenes of trans injustice, this group show brings together 10 artists who explore hard stuff in soft ways.

Ben Aqua is a multidisciplinary artist based in Austin, Texas. Born in Brooklyn, Ben's visual work has been exhibited internationally and published in Rolling Stone, NPR, NYLON, SPIN, NME, Interview Magazine, Businessweek, Beautiful/Decay, and Hi-Fructose. Their music has been featured in Apple’s “Shot on iPhone” and Adidas ad campaigns, as well as in Resident Advisor, Interview Magazine, The Creators Project, Mad Decent, VICE, and FACT Mag. IG: @b3naqua

Kendra Bergman (they/she) creates work using new and recycled materials—lately, mostly textiles. In their work, they explore form, shape, and connection. Texture is extremely important to their work and aims to bring with it a sense of grounding and curiosity.

This piece explores relationships and their complexities. The form is amorphous and seems to be standing up, but is possibly about to turn into a big mess. It’s large and therefore a bit daunting, while also appearing soft and safe. Inside, the reflective material shows you a version of reality that can change with your position. You can also see yourself. IG: @kendrabergman

Beth Schindler (she/her) is an artist, producer and curator living and working in Austin, TX. Working in textiles, video, photography and found materials, creating ephemeral installations and performance. She has shown her work in Austin, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Marfa, D.C. and San Francisco. IG: @bethcita

Michelle Devereux (she/her) is an artist born and raised in Dallas, Texas and has been living and working in Austin since 2005. She received her Bachelor of Arts Degree from Bard College in 2004. She currently works at an Austin-based chainstitch company known as Fort Lonesome. Her performances, installations, videos, and drawings have been shown locally at Monofonus Press, Mass Gallery, Arthouse at the Jones Center, Co-Lab, Domy Books, Okay Mountain, El Cosmico, and Museum of Human Achievement. Other notable shows include a two person show with Matt Furie at New Image Art Gallery in Los Angeles, in addition to a pizza themed group show at Marlborough Gallery in Chelsea. Her recent body of work centers mostly on the media of colored pencil drawings mixed airbrush. IG: @michelle_devereux

Grayson Hunt (he/him) is a soft sculpture fiber artist who uses new and reclaimed materials (leather and denim in particular) to create chains whose sutures and links represent the capacity for trans healing and connection. Bulky and frayed, the chains are light and comfortable. He is the founding creator of Austin’s Transgender Feminisms Reading Group and the Trans, Enby, Intersex and Queer swim night at Barton Springs. He is a new collective member of MASS gallery. IG: @graysonhunts

Jessica Gritton (she/her) is a self-taught fiber artist based in Austin, Texas. She works with embroidery and appliqué, using them as a place to render her emotions and experiences as a transgender woman. She has a particular interest in the history of fiber arts and how they have been used both to construct and to subvert notions of the feminine and how that tension between construction and subversion is reflected in her own life. IG: @jessgherkin

Carly Ostler is a multidisciplinary artist interested in the intersections of art and psychology. As a therapist, Carly uses art to inform the process of personal and relational transformation. As an artist, they use psychology to connect the viewer to deeper reflection of themselves and those around them. Predominantly self-taught, aside from studio classes at various local ceramic studios, Carly’s work explores transformation, process, connection and growth. IG: @carlyostler

Jasmine Amazing, also known as Gothess Jasmine, celebrates the power of art as a language and tool for healing. Gothess is a full time artist and creator based in Austin. As an advocate for mental wellness, Gothess proudly represents undervalued and underbooked performers and artists and uses their platform to uplift others in marginalized communities. They aim to inspire others to use artistic practices such as painting, storytelling and visual performances as a means of radical self expression and spiritual healing. Through these artistic outlets, they intend to inspire people in a manner that transcends culture, language and ability. IG: @gothess.jasmine

Bella Maria Varela is an artist based in Austin, TX who grew up in inner-city Washington, D.C. In her work, she explores themes of immigration, family, and gender identity using video, installation, and photography. Her practice is informed by the resourceful and resilient legacy of immigrant hustlers, which inspires her to collect and transform found objects and images. Bella pulls from her personal archive of video footage, thrifted souvenirs, and San Marcos blankets to create physical gaps that invite new interpretations and hybrid identities. Her art constructs a new iconography that reflects her unique experience as queer first generation Guatemalan American. https://baeyahh.com/about. IG: @baeyahh

Ian Gerson (they/he) is a trans and queer interdisciplinary artist from Houston, TX. Working at the intersections of sculpture, installation, and community engagement, their recent work investigates climate injustices, trans consciousness, and queer longing. Ian has shared work throughout the US and Mexico including Art League Houston, BOX 13 ArtSpace, Galveston Artist Residency, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, The Bronx Museum, and Socrates Sculpture Park. Past residences include Galveston Artist Residency, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, MacDowell, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Swing Space. Their work has been supported by a 2022 Houston Artadia Award, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, a Foundation for Contemporary Art Grant, and a Public Art Grant from the City of Galveston. Ian holds an MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BFA in Studio Art from UT Austin.

Stemming from encounters with (un)natural disasters, mental health challenges, and my trans journey, my work asks how a trans experience, embodying adaptability and resilience, can be looked to as a model for surviving precarity. I am drawn to urban waterways and coastlines as in-between spaces where the impacts of climate crises are forced into high visibility. Navigating shores cruising for materials, I meditate on the history, future, and present-day social and environmental conditions of the liminal outskirts. Weaving flimsy tapestries with ropes culled from Galveston Bay and the Houston Ship Channel, dried plants, mylar emergency blankets, and personal clothing scraps, I use discards and detritus as a way of centering the refused, the invisible, the marginal. These works utilize text, intentionally challenging and refusing easy legibility, depending on the vantage point, viewer, and context, as a metaphor for a trans experience. IG: @ianmilesgerson